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Belgium has become the first country to introduce a compulsory 21-day monkeypox quarantine – as 14 countries now confirm outbreaks o f the viral disease and doctors warn of a ‘significant rise’ in UK cases
Those who contract the virus will now have to self-isolate for three weeks, Belgian health authorities have said, after three cases were recorded in the country.
The infections, the first of which was recorded on Friday, are all linked to a festival in the port city of Antwerp.
It comes as doctors have warned that the UK faces a ‘significant’ rise in infections and the government’s response is ‘critical’ in containing its spread.
Dr Claire Dewsnap, president of the British Association for Sexual Health and HIV, has also said the outbreak could have a ‘massive impact’ on access to sexual health services in Britain.
Sajid Javid yesterday revealed another 11 Britons had tested positive for the virus, taking the total to 20.
The cases include a British child currently in a critical condition at a London hospital, while a further 100 infections have been recorded in Europe.
Dr Dewsnap told Sky News: ‘Our response is really critical here.
Dr Claire Dewsnap, president of the British Association for Sexual Health and HIV, warns of a ‘significant’ rise in infections across the UK in the coming weeks
‘There is going to be more diagnoses over the next week.
‘How many is hard to say. What worries me the most is there are infections across Europe, so this has already spread.
‘It’s already circulating in the general population.
‘Getting on top of all those people’s contacts is a massive job.
‘It could be really significant numbers over the next two or three weeks.’
She says she expects more cases to be identified around the UK, with a ‘significant rise over this next week’.
One of the first known cases of the monkeypox virus are shown on a patient’s hand on June 5, 2003, via a picture released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
A 2003 electron microscope image issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showing mature, oval-shaped monkeypox virions
The rare viral infection, which people usually pick up in the tropical areas of west and central Africa, can be transmitted by very close contact with an infected person.
It is usually mild, with most patients recovering within a few weeks without treatment.
However, the disease can prove fatal with the strain causing the current outbreak killing one in 100 infected.
The disease, which was first found in monkeys, can be transmitted from person to person through close physical contact – as well as sexual intercourse – and is caused by the monkeypox virus.
Dr Dewsnap also said she is concerned about the impact of monkeypox on the treatment of other infections as staff are diverted to tackle the outbreak.
She added: ‘Some clinics that have had cases have had to advise people not to walk in.
‘They’ve primarily done that because if somebody has symptoms consistent with monkeypox, we don’t want people sat in waiting rooms potentially infecting other people.
‘They’ve implemented telephone triage to all of those places.’
Dr Susan Hopkins, a chief medical adviser of the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), said more monkeypox cases are being detected on a daily basis.
Speaking to the BBC’s Sunday Morning programme, Dr Hopkins said UKHSA will be releasing updated figures on Monday.
She said: ‘We will be releasing updated numbers tomorrow – over-the-weekend figures.
‘We are detecting more cases on a daily basis and I’d like to thank all of those people who are coming forward for testing to sexual health clinics, to the GPs and emergency department.”
And asked to confirm reports that someone is being treated for monkeypox in intensive care, she said: ‘We don’t confirm individual reports and individual patients.’
In Britain, authorities are offering a smallpox vaccine to healthcare workers and others who may have been exposed.
Portugal has 14 confirmed cases and 20 suspected infections. And across the Atlantic, there are two confirmed cases in Canada, with 20 suspected cases.
There are also cases in Italy, Sweden, Belgium, Germany, The Netherlands, France, Israel, Switzerland and Australia.
The World Health Organisation said it expects to identify more cases of monkeypox as it expands surveillance in countries where the disease is not typically found.
As of Saturday, 92 confirmed cases and 28 suspected cases of monkeypox have been reported from 12 member states that are not endemic for the virus, the UN agency said, adding it will provide further guidance and recommendations in coming days for countries on how to mitigate the spread of monkeypox.
No one has died of the viral disease to date.
Professor David Heymann, an expert on infectious disease epidemiology at The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said: ‘What seems to be happening now is that it has got into the population as a sexual form, as a genital form, and is being spread as are sexually transmitted infections, which has amplified its transmission around the world.
He said close contact was the key transmission route, as lesions typical of the disease are very infectious.
For example, parents caring for sick children are at risk, as are health workers, which is why some countries have started inoculating teams treating monkeypox patients using vaccines for smallpox, a related virus.
Many of the current cases have been identified at sexual health clinics.
Early genomic sequencing of a handful of the cases in Europe has suggested a similarity with the strain that spread in a limited fashion in Britain, Israel and Singapore in 2018.
Heymann said it was ‘biologically plausible’ the virus had been circulating outside of the countries where it is endemic, but had not led to major outbreaks as a result of COVID-19 lockdowns, social distancing and travel restrictions.
It comes as it emerged some of the country’s top disease experts warned that monkeypox would fill the void left by smallpox three years ago.
Scientists from leading institutions including the University of Cambridge and the London School of Tropical Hygiene and Medicine argued the viral disease would evolve to fill the ‘niche’ left behind after smallpox was eradicated.
According to the Sunday Telegraph, the experts attended a seminar in London back in 2019 and discussed how there was a need to develop ‘a new generation vaccines and treatments’.
The seminar heard that as smallpox was eradicated in 1980, there has been a cessation of smallpox vaccinations and, as a result, up to 70 per cent of the world’s population are no longer protected against smallpox.
This means they are also no longer protected against other viruses in the same family such as monkeypox.
